Beer server

Abstract

A compact, inexpensive, and low-power-consumption beer server that controls beer temperature at nearly 0° C. and prevents the beer from freezing. The beer server includes a beer tank 12, a primary cooling tank 16, and a secondary cooling tank 18. Beer in the beer tank 12 is cooled to 2 to 5° C. in the primary cooling tank 16 . Thereafter, the beer is cooled to 0° C. in the secondary cooling tank 18. A control unit 50 controls agitation fins 22 so that a beer temperature T 1 at an outlet of the primary cooling tank 16 is a predetermined temperature of 2 to 5° C. The secondary cooling unit 18 is composed of two heat exchangers 30 a and 30 b . The control unit 50 controls refrigerant supplied to heat exchangers 30 a and 30 b so that a beer temperature T 2 at an outlet of the secondary cooling tank 18 is a predetermined temperature of nearly 0° C.

1 . A beer server comprising:
 a beer tank that stores beer;   a primary cooling unit having a cooling tank storing cooling water, an agitator that agitates the cooling water, a beer cooling pipe disposed in the cooling water and through which the beer flows from the beer tank, and a refrigerant evaporation pipe disposed in the cooling water;   a secondary cooling unit having a heat exchanging part that directly exchanges heat between the beer primarily cooled by the primary cooling unit and a refrigerant not through a heat medium so as to secondarily cool the beer;   a dispensing nozzle that dispenses the beer cooled by the secondary cooling unit;   a freezer that supplies a low temperature refrigerant to the refrigerant evaporation pipe of the primary cooling unit and to the secondary cooling unit;   a first temperature sensor that detects a beer temperature at an outlet of the primary cooling unit;   a second temperature sensor that detects a beer temperature at an outlet of the secondary cooling unit; and   a control unit into which detected values of the first temperature sensor and the second temperature sensor are inputted, the control unit being configured to control an operation of the agitator to set the beer temperature at the outlet of the primary cooling unit to a predetermined value, and to control an amount of the refrigerant supplied to the second cooling unit to set the beer temperature at the outlet of the secondary cooling unit to a predetermined value.   
     
     
         2 . The beer server according to  claim 1   wherein the heat exchanging part of the secondary cooling unit includes a plurality of heat exchangers disposed in series in a flow path of the beer,   wherein the beer server comprises refrigerant supply pipes and flow rate adjustment valves, the refrigerant supply pipes being disposed in parallel with the primary cooling unit and the plurality of heat exchangers and configured to supply the low temperature refrigerant from the freezer to each of the plurality of heat exchangers and the refrigerant evaporation pipe of the primary cooling unit, and the flow rate adjustment valves being disposed in the respective refrigerant supply pipes, and   wherein the control unit controls opening degrees of the flow rate adjustment valves so as to control the amounts of the refrigerant supplied to the plurality of heat exchangers.   
     
     
         3 . The beer server according to  claim 1 ,
 wherein the primary cooling unit has an ice storage sensor, and   wherein the control unit causes the low temperature refrigerant to be supplied to the refrigerant evaporation pipe of the primary cooling unit in a non-operating time of the beer server so that only a predetermined amount of ice is stored in the primary cooling unit.